


First Impressions

by alittlelesspain



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Regency, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 01:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21262769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlelesspain/pseuds/alittlelesspain
Summary: The first time that Lady Astra asks for Alex Danvers' hand in marriage, Miss Danvers' reply is decidedly in the negative, although not for the reasons one might have thought.(Or, the one with the Pride & Prejudice AU.)





	First Impressions

**Author's Note:**

> (Written for General Danvers Week 4 Prompt 6: Human)
> 
> This was supposed to be a short Pride and Prejudice AU, because I certainly started writing this after a P&P reread, but Astra and Alex are so different from the Lizzie/Darcy archetypes that I had to change the story, characters and circumstances a Lot. So, consider this a P&P-inspired AU, rather than a P&P AU.
> 
> Also, gay marriage is more accepted in this AU than it would be in the actual Regency era because I'm very gay and would like a few happy endings.

It was a truth universally acknowledged that an Alex Danvers due for a meeting with her mother must be in want of a good, stiff drink.

Or something of that sort. Alex wasn’t quite sure how the book went, although she suspected there was something about a wife in there, somewhere, and a wife was the last thing Alex was prepared to be, just at that moment.

When her mother called her into the library that morning, Alex went in already braced for the worst. The exasperated look on her mother’s face didn’t lessen her apprehension one iota.

“Alexandra, there has been another letter of proposal for you from Mister Lord.”

Eliza dutifully passed her the letter, and Alex dutifully threw it into the fire at once. 

Eliza sighed. “At least write the man a reply.”

“If my last five letters of refusal didn’t have any effect, I have my doubts that a sixth is going to work,” Alex said.

In truth, Alex had no intention of accepting any man’s proposal, but Mister Maxwell Lord was peculiarly repellent among his species. He seemed to be under the impression that if he enumerated his considerable wealth and the breadth of his published works often enough, Alex would give in to his proposal out of sheer exhaustion.

Eliza, though more positively disposed towards him than Alex, seemed to decide not to push her daughter on the issue just then. 

“You have more pressing concerns, regardless,” she said, taking another letter out.

Alex stared at the well-worn state of this new entrant, a clear indication that Eliza had read and reread it many times over, before calling Alex in to discuss it.

“Lady Astra has written to me, and asked for your hand in marriage as well,” Eliza said.

* * *

Lady Astra, on account being Lady Astra, didn’t simply content herself with putting the request through Eliza, but came to visit Alex herself that very evening, to make the proposal properly.

“This isn’t something that I would dream of asking of you in normal circumstances, of course,” she began.

This immediately stiffened Alex’s spine, and therefore set the tone for the unfortunate conversation to follow.

“Is that so?” Alex asked.

Astra nodded.

“You must know that Mister Lord is influencing your mother’s creditors to put undue stress on her, in hopes that it would force a decision from you regarding his proposal,” she said. “It is to her credit that she hasn’t yet pressured you into making a decision.”

Alex sucked in a sharp breath. Of course _ she _ knew that, but the fact that Astra also knew was unpardonable.

“Marry me,” Lady Astra said. “You’ll never need fear Lord or anyone else again. I’ll make sure of that.”

“Isn’t that kind of you.”

If Astra was anyone but Astra, she would have picked up from that flat tone that something was dangerously wrong.

“No kinder than what you have done,” she said, instead, with a sober look on her face. “I haven’t forgotten how well you and your family took care of Kara, during all those years when I thought she was dead. Marrying you is the least I can do to pay you back for your generosity.”

“Pay me back?” Alex echoed. 

“You needn’t be afraid that it was Kara who betrayed your family’s private affairs to me,” Astra continued. “Your late father’s indiscretions with his investments is hardly unknown in financial circles, and I happened to hear from Miss Lane that Mister Lord has been pressuring you into some agreement or other.”

“I see,” Alex said, after a while. “So, you decided to ride in on your white horse, and save the day.”

Astra’s face clouded, as if she almost saw the trap this time, but it cleared again as she nodded.

“I’ll back up all the debts, of course,” she said. “And the marriage will be for legal purposes only. I won’t force you into any-”

At this point, Astra had to stop speaking and step aside rather rapidly, in order to avoid the tea cup that Alex had hurled her way. Mercifully empty, the crash it made as it hit the other side of the wall was nevertheless deafening in the otherwise silent room.

“Well,” said Astra, after some moments of looking between the wall and Alex. “Clearly, this is not going as well as it did in my head.”

“Clearly,” Alex agreed, seething inside and barely managing to keep incivility out of her voice.

After that, the meeting turned out to be a very short one. Over the course of Astra endeavouring to explain herself, and instead miring herself deeper and deeper in offense, Alex showed what she thought was remarkable self-restraint, by only throwing three more cups at her, all of which Astra managed to catch and set neatly back down on the table.

“I’m afraid that was not a very productive meeting,” Astra said, later, to Eliza as the latter saw her out. “I shall try some other time.”

Alex, meanwhile, was less afraid of mincing words.

“If that woman shows up in here again,” she declared moments later, storming out into the entrance hall, and well aware that Astra was not three steps out the door, and certainly within hearing distance, “I’m shooting her with father’s old pistol myself.”

“Alexandra!” cried an appalled Eliza, wondering what had gotten into her usually dependable eldest daughter.

But Alex only stormed back into the music room that she had converted into a makeshift science laboratory, muttering something incendiary about “Payback, I’ll show her payback, that-”

* * *

Not for the last time, Alex bitterly resented that Kara was away studying in Paris, so that Alex could not confide in her about this latest outrage from Astra. As it was, it was not until the next evening that she felt ready to even discuss it with her mother.

“You should have heard her,” Alex seethed. “Dragging out all that history about father... as if it was his fault that he had a trusting nature, and an absolute imbecile for a broker!”

Eliza winced, long used to being the mediator between her daughter and Kara’s aunt, who seemed to be the one person capable of reducing Eliza’s normally collected daughter to pieces on a regular basis.

“Lady Astra can be a bit direct,” she admitted. “I don’t think she means anything by it.”

“She means everything by it,” Alex said. “Can’t you see the insult in her proposal?”

“Mister Lord was far more insolent,” Eliza said.

“Mister Lord means nothing to me!” Alex snapped, and then hurriedly moved on from that, in case her mother realized just how much truth that sentence held. “We don’t need Astra’s help. I have a contract almost finalized with Mister Jones’ journal. The advance will tide us over for the next few payments.”

“I hate to see you put yourself through this,” Eliza said. “This is not your responsibility, Alexandra. If anything, it is mine, and since I have let you down, I won’t be so proud as to not ask Lady Astra for help.”

She looked very tired all of a sudden, and that only made Alex feel guiltier, which had the side effect of making her angrier.

“And please do not insult her again by accusing her of not following through on her assurances,” Eliza continued wearily. “If it weren’t for her, Kara wouldn’t have had the chance to go to Paris and study with Miss Grand.”

“Kara is her niece,” Alex said. “Paying for her education is the least Astra can do.”

Eliza sighed. “It’s not merely Kara, Alexandra.”

Alex’s head snapped up? “What?”

“Your father’s sudden death left me in a ..difficult position,” Eliza said, looking awkward, but resolved to continue. “I knew enrolling in the Royal Academy was your dream, but between Jeremiah’s investment losses, and the entailment...”

Here, that resolve failed, and she trailed off.

“What?” Alex asked, hoarsely. “What are you saying?”

“I had no hand in it,” Eliza said. “Lady Astra had arranged the tuition before I even heard of it, and by the time I found out, the Academy had already offered you the position. By then, I could not have turned down her aid without breaking your heart in the process, too.”

Alex sat down heavily in a chair, feeling that her heart may be breaking now regardless.

“I’ll pay her back,” she said, after several minutes of brooding.

Elza sighed again. “You know we barely put aside anything each month.”

“Then, I’ll take work,” Alex declared, ignoring the scandalized noise that drew out of her mother. “Come on, mama. Times are changing. I’m not having Astra hold this against me-”

“I don’t think she ever meant for you to find out,” Eliza said. “I thought it was time you knew, so that you don’t horribly offend the woman, the next time she approaches you.”

With that, her mother left the room, leaving Alex a simmering mix of rage and resentment.

* * *

The next time Astra visited, Alex was in her laboratory. Anyone else knew better than to enter, when Alex was engaged in her work there. Astra simply strolled in, throwing a curious look over the mineral specimens that Alex had arranged over the work table.

“If you’ve come to ask me to marry you again,” Alex said, looking up briefly, “Wait out in the drawing room, please. All the equipment in here is too fragile for me to throw at you.”

“I’ll hold off, then,” Astra said, and drew nearer, to stare curiously at the green rock that Alex was studying. “You did not have that one, the last time I was here.”

“I hadn’t found it yet, then,” Alex said, carefully putting the rock back down, for its angles were deceptively sharp. “Its structure is like nothing I’ve seen before, in person or in books. I think I may have found a mineral that is as of yet undocumented.”

“Indeed.” Astra seemed mildly intrigued, before her eyes swept down the length of the table. “You’ve got quite a collection, now.”

“I have to,” Alex said. “I’ve been invited by Madame Marsdine to present my studies on them, at one of her Dijon salons in the winter.”

“Madame Marsdine?” Astra looked suitably impressed. “I’ve read some of her translations in the _ Annales de chimie _. A remarkable scholar. Well done, Alex.”

Alex turned back to study her newest specimen, hoping that the light of the lamp above would wash out her burning cheeks. Of course Astra, out of all the people in Alex’s life, would have to be the one who not only understood Alex’s line of work, but also what a triumph it was for a woman to be invited to speak at one of Europe’s most celebrated scientific salons.

In fact, Astra was perhaps the one person who not only understood Alex’s enduring passion, but shared it to a degree. Alex suspected that the woman might be more well-read than Alex herself, when it came to scientific studies, though she didn’t seem to have the affinity for the practical side of the research, as Alex did. Over the years, they had spent many an evening together at various literary and scientific salons, and Astra had once even deigned to accompany Alex to the moors, to collect mineral samples.

Which, Alex was willing to admit to herself at least, made everything harder.

Astra smiled, a rare thing. “Perhaps I can accompany you. I’d like to see how Kara is doing.”

“What?” Alex asked, broken out of her thoughts. “Oh, Dijon.”

“It isn’t prohibitively far from there to Paris,” Astra said. “Kara would be pleased to see us both, I think. She sounded rather homesick in her last letter.”

Alex eyed her, before going back to studying the mineral in her hand.

“My mother told me everything,” she said, abruptly. “About you paying for my studies, that is.”

The smile that had entered Astra’s face when she had spoken of Kara, now slid off entirely. Alex would have been bitterly sorry to see such a beautiful thing go, if she weren’t so preoccupied otherwise.

“You were not meant to know that,” Astra said.

“It could hardly have been kept from me forever,” Alex said. “I suppose I have to apologize, now, for treating you so rudely when you proposed.”

Astra looked unmoved, still. “You suppose?”

“Well, I won’t,” Alex said, folding her arms and refusing to look at Astra. “You had no right to do that.”

“I stepped in where I saw an opportunity to help,” Astra said. “I would not have done it, if I thought there was any other way for your family.”

Alex scrubbed a hand over her face, wondering why Astra thought that made it any better.

“How much do I owe you?” she asked.

Astra looked irritated.

“Why on Earth are you-”

Alex stalked forward, and jabbed a finger into Astra’s chest.

“How. Much. Do. I. Owe. You.” she growled.

Astra seemed to consider her request seriously.

“Quite a lot, between the tuition and lodgings,” she said, eventually. “And also, nothing all. Alex, you are the reason that Kara is alive. Do you really think any amount of money will ever make up for that?”

Alex collapsed as the fight went out of her, and turned away. 

That was what it always came back to, eventually. Kara. The person whom both of them loved more than they probably loved themselves. The person who was both the bridge and the yawning divide between them.

Alex knew that Astra held some amount of disdain for her, over the disparity of their circumstances, despite the middle ground they held over their one shared interest. But the truth was, Astra seemed to garner some measure of disdain and arrogance for anyone who wasn’t Kara, holding everyone but her niece at arm’s length. The way she treated Alex was no worse than the supercilious way that she treated everyone else.

And because of that, Alex knew that it was she herself who was the fool, for expecting anything worse or better or _ different _. Astra had made a fool out of her without lifting a single finger, and that made Alex angrier at her than any outright insult on her part would have.

* * *

Though inclined towards isolation by nature, Alex was nevertheless fond of the occasional ball. Between the chance to meet old friends, and the promise of physical exertion, the necessary time away from her laboratory for such gatherings was rather welcome to her.

That was before she had caught the interest of Mister Lord, after which the man had tried to monopolize Alex’s attention at every gathering she had attended forthwith. Mister Lord was dedicated, if nothing else, filling up her dance card with such tedious regularity that Alex had often had to plead an injury to get away from him.

That particular night, Alex had managed to escape his attentions for three whole dances, by dancing all three of them with the Lane sisters in succession, and was sitting the fourth one out with Miss Lucy, when a lull in their conversation drew the attention of two nearby ladies to her.

“Ah, Miss Danvers.” Lady Daxham turned to face her, the movement mirrored by her companion, Miss Smythe. “We were just discussing Lady Astra’s visit to your house, last week.”

Alex stiffened. She was quite sure that no news of the actual proposal had gotten out, but-

“She wished to meet with my mother about Kara,” she said. 

“Indeed.” Lady Daxham raised imperious eyebrows. “She rarely ventures to visit anyone, so one wonders.”

Alex breathed out, relieved that the woman didn’t seem to know anything more than that. “I’m sure she’s busy.”

“I’m sure,” Lady Daxham echoed, and seemed ready to return to ignoring Alex, when her companion decided to join the salvo.

“What, Lady Astra?” Miss Smythe said. “What can she possibly be occupied with? She has no husband or child of her own to take up her time, does she?”

“Not any longer,” Lady Daxham replied, with a delicate cruelty, while she and Miss Smythe shared a significant look. “I suppose it’s no wonder that she never attends any sort of gathering, after that sham of a marriage.”

“Her husband’s shameful treatment of her was hardly her fault,” Alex cut in coldly, for she was personally of the opinion that, after having cruelly deserted Astra soon after their marriage, the man deserved much worse than the early death that he had drunk himself into. 

“Well,” Miss Smythe looked flustered. “I wasn’t saying... I would never try to-”

But Lady Daxham steamrolled over both her and Alex.

“She chose him,” the lady said, indomitably. “She chose him against the express wishes of her family, and she justly reaped what she sowed. It’s just as well that her niece managed to escape the taint of her infamy.”

And with that, she rose and left to seek out her son, followed obediently by Miss Smythe.

“Yes, I wonder why Lady Astra wouldn’t want the pleasant company of those two for an evening,” Miss Lucy whispered, leaning in close to Alex.

But, Alex had heard enough. Making some short excuse about needing air, she went out alone into the gardens, where her clenched fists and anger-flushed cheeks wouldn’t be witnessed by anyone else.

She shouldn’t be so angry on Astra’s behalf, she knew, given how the woman treated her. But, she knew equally well that she always would be. She would always defend Astra from the slightest insult, and would feel any slight against her as keenly as if it had been directed at Alex herself. Alex knew all that, and she knew she couldn’t change it, but that didn’t make her misery over the situation any less acute.

* * *

The next month, Lady Astra left on business to the south. Coincidentally, everyone noticed that Miss Danvers’ mood plummeted to historic lows that month.

“I hear that you’re terrorizing poor Winn,” Eliza commented to her daughter, one evening. “Do go easy on him; he’s a sweet boy.”

“He needs to stop pining over my sister, and asking about her every time we meet,” Alex said shortly.

“What’s the harm in it?” Eliza asked, looking mildly amused as she knitted away. “Every young man should experience heartbreak once in their youth.”

“Every young man should learn to take no for an answer,” Alex said, reshelving with a vengeance the books that were scattered around the drawing room. “Failing that, they should stop pestering _ me _ about it.”

“Oh, stop being so irritable, Alexandra.” Eliza looked up from her knitting, as she finally lost her patience with her daughter. “What has gotten into you?”

“Nothing,” Alex snapped, and stormed back into her laboratory, after slamming the last book into its place on the shelves.

* * *

Lady Astra returned before summer’s end. Around the same time, everyone in the Danvers household breathed a sigh of relief, as Alex’s mood suddenly improved in leaps and bounds.

* * *

“And so, Madame Marsdine offered to introduce me to a noted rminerarologist, who can check the sample against his own records,” Alex related, as she walked back through the moors with Astra, who was freshly returned from her trip south. “So, I’ve got that to look forward to, when we go down to Dijon.”

“You must introduce me to her,” Astra said. “I have always wanted to make her acquaintance.”

“Alright.” Alex flushed, pleased at the chance to get to do something for Astra; matters usually ended up falling the other way around.

“Good,” Astra said. “I have some questions to ask her about her translation work, and I can’t do so without a proper introduction.”

“As though propriety had ever stopped you before,” Alex said. “Sometimes, I wonder if you’re not a keener scholar than me, however much you try to downplay it.”

“No,” Astra said, looking uncharacteristically embarrassed, or perhaps self-conscious. “I merely dabble.”

“Mm-hmm,” Alex replied, absently. 

She was staring around her, taking in the sunset in front of them, when Astra slowed down her brisk pace to a more meandering walk. Alex gladly followed suit, eager to prolong such a pleasant walk, when Astra broke the silence again.

“Alex, there is something I must speak with you about.”

Alex tensed.

“Don’t start again,” she said, wearily. “We’ve spent such a nice evening together, and now I’ll have to ruin it by refusing you. I’ll always refuse you. Don’t you know that?”

“That is not what I wanted to speak to you about, but that offer is on the table anytime you wish to take it,” Astra assured her. “I was referring to Mister Lord, as a matter of fact.”

“Why, do you plan on proposing to him, too?” Alex asked, but the joke fell flat, for the edge in her voice was obvious, at least to herself.

Astra didn’t smile, regardless.

“I have had my solicitors looking into Mister Lord’s finances for a while now,” she said. “I know that he has gained some sort of influence over your creditors, which makes them accede to his every whim, but I am happy to say that my solicitors’ investigations have come up with some damning evidence of Mister Lord’s own financial indiscretions.”

Alex stared at her. “What?”

“In essence, I have forced him to stay his hand,” Astra said. “I do not think that your creditors will be squeezing your mother so heavily on his account, any longer.”

Alex let out a deep breath. She should be relieved. This meant that her mother wouldn’t be so worried, anymore. This meant security for everyone in the Danvers household. 

She should be happy, but Alex found herself quivering with shame and resentment, instead.

“I suppose,” she started, “that you think I ought to be grateful.”

Astra glanced sidelong at her.

“I’ve long since stopped thinking of the things you ought to be,” she said. “You always end up surprising me.”

“Stop it!” Alex hissed, rounding on her, and stopping their walk short. “This isn’t the time for some clever repartee. Don’t you understand how cruel you’re being?”

“Was I supposed to let Mister Lord continue to exploit you?” Astra asked, in tones that were almost as tense. “Would that have been the kind thing to do?”

Alex threw up her hands.

“Yes!” she shouted. “Don’t you understand how painful it is, to know that you’ll never see me as anything more than Kara’s sister, and still have you continue to protect me as one would a wife? If you have any shred of kindness in your body, you would leave me to the dogs!”

That brought Astra up short.

“I did not-” she began.

“And furthermore,” Alex continued, speaking over Astra before her nerve gave up entirely. “I know you don’t care for me, but how dare you insult me by assuming that I’m some helpless simpleton who can’t fend for myself without you?”

She shook like a leaf in the wind when she was finished, knowing that she had gone too far this time, to come back from what she had said. With anyone else, she might be able to pretend that she hadn’t meant it, but Astra would see right through that. 

And yet, despite her apprehension, Alex couldn’t help but anticipate what Astra’s reaction would be. The customary aloofness? Disdain? Would she go so far as disgust? Alex could handle that, she thought, and even anger. She could handle anything but pity.

“You think I don’t want you?” Astra asked, instead, knocking all of her predictions out of the water.

* * *

“You think I don’t want you?” Astra’s voice was strangled, as she repeated her question. “Alex, in what possible universe could I not want you?”

That drew all of Alex’s righteous indignation up short.

“What?” she asked.

“I know you could never love me the way I love you,” Astra said, and there was bitter resignation in those words, “but, wife or not, that I will spend the rest of my life protecting you from anyone like Mister Lord, and I refuse to apologize for or be deterred from that.”

And then, when the veil of her own feelings of inadequacy were lifted away, Alex finally saw what Astra had really been hiding behind her aloof facade. Not arrogance or disdain, but a deep well of self-loathing. The self-loathing of a woman who felt responsible for the death of all but one of her nearest kin, and who had on top of that happened to fall in love with a man who had betrayed her in every possible way that a wife could be betrayed. The sudden realization took Alex’s breath away for a moment.

“You- you-” Words failed her.

How had she not seen this before, when it was so clear now? Of course Astra, who had been proved so callously wrong in love once before, wouldn’t trust anyone of harbouring such feelings towards her again. And of course, being Astra, she had gone entirely off the other end instead, focusing on what she could offer Alex, without realizing how horribly offended Alex would be by the act of offering itself.

“You idiot,” Alex managed, eventually. “You darling, besotted, _ idiot _.”

Astra looked tired, not insulted.

“I don’t know what to do any longer,” she said. “I’ve done so many things wrong in my life, Alex. When I ran away with Non, I left my sister behind to a fate that I should have rightfully shared in. Then, I failed to find Kara for twelve more years. And, just when I’ve managed to rebuild my relationship with her again, I’ve earned your contempt. It seems that everytime I try to set things right, I manage to do the exact opposite.”

“You haven’t earned anything from me,” Alex said. “And, I highly doubt that you could have single-handedly saved your sister from a fire that engulfed her entire estate.”

Astra shook her head, and Alex could understand her reluctant to accept that. She herself, she knew, would never stop blaming herself if something were to happen to Kara right now, even though Alex couldn’t possibly prevent it from this far away.

“I have a suggestion,” she said. “Instead of trying to do things for people, talk to them instead. And by people, I mean myself.”

Without waiting for an answer from Astra, she moved forward, lifting up Astra’s fists which had been clenched at her side, and softly prying the fingers apart, so that Alex could lace her own through them.

“Let’s start again,” she said. “Try to imagine for a moment, that I am completely amenable to having you for a suitor, and that I would far prefer you to the likes of Mister Lord.”

Astra’s eyes were wide, and her jaw twitched. Minute signs in others, but cataclysmic changes for her.

“Imagine that,” Alex says, “And then ask me once more for my hand, please.”

Silence.

“I promise not to throw things at you again,” Alex added.

That brought a slight smile to Astra’s lips, making Alex incredibly proud of herself for a moment, but there was still a frown knitting up her eyebrows.

“You’d prefer me?” she asks, looking down at Alex’s hands clasping hers, as if she was trying to decipher a mystery. “Alex, I’m... I’m tired, and old, and I’m sure you must have heard about the disaster of a marriage I had with my late husband.”

Alex felt tears prick her eyes, for some strange reason.

“I know what I’ve heard, you silly idiot,” she said. “But, I also know what I’ve seen of you, and if you think I’m going to judge you for falling in love when you were young with a man who treated you shamefully, then perhaps it’s you who doesn’t think very highly of me.”

“I would not!” Astra stumbled over the words in a rush, looking outraged at the accusation. “Alex, I-”

She seemed to have spoken too fast, because she paused then, to regroup and restart.

“Alexandra, from the moment I saw you, I knew you would change my life forever, even though I resisted so strongly against it, used to my solitary ways as I was. You captivated me, not simply because of how much you loved and cared for my last living kin, but also because of your innate spirit, and brilliance, and bravery. I tried to tell myself it was a passing infatuation, but here I am, still painfully in love, more than half a decade later. I have long accepted that my feelings would not be returned, but the one thing I have promised myself is that I will never let you face hardship if I can prevent it, and I will never let Maxwell Lord or _ anyone _ use you the way that Non once used me.”

Alex realized that at some point during the proposal, Astra had sunk to her knees in the muddy grass of the moors. Then, Alex realized that she too had knelt soon after - collapsed, really - as tears had sprung to her eyes.

“Astra,” she choked out. “Damn you, Astra.”

“I’ve upset you again,” Astra said, not sounding particularly surprised. “I seem to have a talent for it.”

Alex shook her head, and lunged forward to throw her arm around Astra instead. 

“Not this time.” She drew Astra up with her, in between sniffs. “That was just... that was perfect. That was all I wanted from you, Astra. I just wanted you to love me.” She leans back, and cradled Astra’s jaw. “I wanted so desperately for you to care for me the way I cared for you.”

Astra’s mouth opened.

“Don’t argue,” Alex said, before she could get a word out. “Or I’ll have to argue with you about how I’m not actually spirited or brave or brilliant, and that you’re gravely mistaken about every good quality that you think I possess.”

“You ask me to tell you why I want to marry you, and then you refute every point I make,” Astra said, but her lips were quirking up. “You are a very strange woman.”

“I’ve been told that quite often,” Alex said. “But I’m your strange woman, and I’m afraid you’re stuck with me for the long haul, now, for I don’t plan on leaving you after a year with your jewels, like Non did.”

For a moment, she thought she had misspoken horribly, but then Astra smiled even wider, and covered Alex’s hand with her own.

“I never thought I could have this,” she said, and Alex’s heart clenched painfully in response. “I never thought I could love someone so consumingly again, nor did I think that such feelings could be returned, and now you’ve proved me wrong on both counts.”

“Someone alert _ The Times _, Lady In-Ze admits that she’s wrong about something,” Alex said, but she was wiping tears away from her own face. “I spent so long being furious at you, you know. Thinking that you saw me as nothing but an obligation.”

A strong wind shook the moors just then. Without thinking about it, Alex stepped closer to Astra. Astra curled around her just as instinctively.

“I just wish that you’d told me sooner,” Alex murmured, reaching up from within the cocoon of warmth to press her mouth against Astra’s, something she had dreamt of doing more often than she’d ever admit.

The way Astra’s lips went pliant under hers, and the way her entire body caved into Alex all of a sudden, as if some great restraint had been lifted, was something new and wonderful. Alex was sure that no one else in the history of the world had achieved something so miraculous, and was incredibly proud of herself for it.

“Do you remember the first time you came with me to the moors?” she asked, when she pulled back. “When I finally convinced you to come searching for minerals with me, after a year of badgering you?”

Astra looked reminiscent. “It was almost autumn then, wasn’t it? We were caught in the storm, but you still refused to leave until you found the meteorite that you had spotted the day before.”

“You looked so beautiful that night, with your hair all askew,” Alex went on, undeterred by the playful accusation. “I wonder if you remember when we had to run to escape the rain, and you laughed as you overtook me. It was the first time I’d ever heard you laugh.” She ducked her head, not quite able to maintain eye contact. “Since then, I’ve never been able to look past you.”

It was Astra who tilted her face back up, and kissed her. She wasn’t so chaste as Alex had been, with the kiss she initiated. Warm lips slid over Alex’s with a devouring fervour, consuming her so thoroughly that Alex had to wonder how this passion had escaped her notice for years. She felt ready to not just collapse, but burn from the inside out altogether, from the sudden and unbridled assault of it. Even the way the breath was stolen right out of her body was captivating, surprising her with how much she wanted to prolong the sweet pain of it.

“I never knew,” Alex breathed out, when they separated. “Oh, _ Astra.” _

Astra looked dazed when they part, though the sharpness came back to her eyes soon, along with a slightly sheepish expression, which looked very strange on her. “Was it too much?”

Alex shook her head, not trusting herself to speak until her galloping heartbeat slowed down.

“Only wondering at how I didn’t manage to notice something so overpowering sooner,” she said.

She swallowed at the way Astra’s eyes went intense and dark at her words, but it wasn’t from fear of the woman in front of her. Astra could consume her, Alex could see now, if she let her. But Alex had been consumed by many things before, an almost inextricable addiction not the least of them. She could think of far worse fates than being consumed by love for once, even one this terrifyingly passionate. 

She reached out to lace her fingers through Astra’s again, and gave a little tug, which Astra obediently followed. 

“Some part of me wants to hide away with you in these moors forever,” Alex confessed. “But, we should go, before my mother sends out a search party for me.”

Astra’s smile resurfaced at that, as she followed Alex down the wet slope that led homewards.

“Alex?” she prompted, a few minutes into the walk.

“Yes?”

“You never did give me a proper answer,” Astra said. “One expects a yes or a no, when proposing.”

“One would have to actually ask a question, to receive such an answer,” Alex said. “Besides, does such a thing really suit us?”

“Marriage?” Astra asked. “Why, do you not want to live happily ever after?”

“You’re not the kind of woman that one lives happily ever after with,” Alex said, bringing their joined hands to her lips briefly, to take the sting out of the tease. “We wouldn’t be married one week before you managed to annoy me again.”

“I promise to keep the tea room well-stocked with mugs for you to throw at me, whenever that happens,” Astra promised gravely.

“How romantic. You really should have led with that, in your proposal. I would have said yes much sooner.”

And, caught up in that familiar and good-natured bickering, they walked the rest of the way home.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and hope you enjoyed!


End file.
